<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>You're My Dad (Boogie Woogie Woogie) by mythaster</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25255357">You're My Dad (Boogie Woogie Woogie)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythaster/pseuds/mythaster'>mythaster</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I Want To Make It Up To You [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Adventures in Odyssey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Father's Day, Gen, M/M, as with every richard fic i've ever written or considered, it's just a lot of internal conflict, why is Plot What Plot a porn term when it describes everything i've ever ficced before</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 06:02:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,781</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25255357</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythaster/pseuds/mythaster</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It's almost Father's Day. Richard's father is dead to him, but Whit... exists. What's the Father's Day protocol for "you're not my dad and I don't think of you as my dad but you've saved my life in more ways than I deserve and you're the only man I'd ever trust like a father, plus I'm dating your son, so, I don't know, MAYBE"? </p><p>Hallmark fails the common man again.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>(only background tho), Richard Maxwell &amp; John Avery Whittaker, Richard Maxwell/Jason Whittaker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I Want To Make It Up To You [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1392586</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. There Is No Card For This</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">The thing is, it’d be weird to go to Jason for advice. Any other time, Richard would swallow his pride and ask for help, because, as much as it pains him to admit, Jason has skills that Richard doesn’t. One of those skills is emotional honesty, which still feels less like a skill and more like a liability. Jason doesn’t have it in <em>droves</em>, but he’s better at parsing emotion than Richard is.</p><p class="p1">This is about Whit, though. And Father’s Day. And Richard cannot talk to Jason about Jason’s father on Father’s Day.</p><p class="p1">It’s one of their Things. Jason knows the impact that his dad has had on Richard’s life, can’t help but be aware of it because if it wasn’t for Whit, Richard would have died the death of a morally deficient little teenage firestarter, and that’s just the tip of an unfortunate iceberg. But it’s not just Richard. Practically everyone in Odyssey has a Whit-saved-me-from-a-burning-building story. No matter how much you love your dad, that kind of thing can give you a complex. Richard is careful about it.</p><p class="p1">So, no. He’s not going to ask Jason what to do about Father’s Day, Whit, and the inner sliver of the venn diagram that Richard has labeled with little more than: <em>me???</em></p><p class="p1">Over breakfast, he watches Jason eating his egg biscuit, clicking through something on his phone, coffee steaming at his elbow, and Richard thinks, <em>I bought a card. Does your dad like cards?</em> Obviously, he doesn’t say it out loud.</p><p class="p1">On the way to Whit’s End - the name feels more pointed than usual - Jason reaches over and grabs Richard’s hand, swinging it between them as they walk, and Richard feels warm even as he commands himself not to say, <em>I think I wrote too much on the card. Will he think that’s weird?</em></p><p class="p1">At the door, Jason kisses Richard goodbye and goes off for his own errands of the day, and Richard lingers, like Jason’s retreating form is his last few breaths on a cigarette break and he has to <em>enjoy</em> it, because it’s the last for at least half the day. He misses Jason already but is relieved that he won’t be tempted to bring up Father’s Day again.</p><p class="p1">He’s not that desperate yet.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Emotional Marbles, Or Lack Thereof</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Richard asks for help.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">“I’m <em>desperate</em>,” Richard says, bringing it to the only person he trusts who has enough emotional marbles to count on more than one hand. “You gotta tell me how to play this.”</p><p class="p1">Connie slowly sets down the ice cream scoop and turns to him, scrutinizing every inch of him.</p><p class="p1">“Let me get this straight,” she says.</p><p class="p1">“Bi,” Richard says, and winces at himself.</p><p class="p1">“Let me get this straight,” she repeats, putting her hands together in a supervillain gesture, which he is intimately familiar with. “You’re asking… my help… on a sensitive emotional issue.”</p><p class="p1">Richard feels a little like he’s holding a ticking bomb and just picked the wrong wire to cut. But it’s too late to back out now. There’s a card burning a hole in his backpack.</p><p class="p1">“Ah… yes?” he says.</p><p class="p1">Her eyes begin to gleam. The anime kind of gleam. It could be a good or a bad sign.</p><p class="p1">“I knew this day would come,” she says, and then suddenly she’s swooped him towards a booth, screaming for Eugene to come and man the counter for half an hour.</p><p class="p1">Richard winces again as she slings him into the booth seat and slides in across from him. “I don’t think it’ll take that long. I just… oh, my God.”</p><p class="p1">She’s leaning halfway across the table, hands clasped, elbows like the flared wings of a very nosy eagle. As if catching on to his discomfort, Connie straightens up a little more, smoothing her hair back. “Sorry,” she says. “It’s been a while since someone asked me for advice.”</p><p class="p1">“The power goes to your head.”</p><p class="p1">“Boy does it.” She sighs and sits up very straight, the anime gleam gone, self-consciously serious. “What can I help with?”</p><p class="p1">“It’s…” Richard scrubs at his cheeks with both hands. “It’s about tomorrow.”</p><p class="p1">“Tomorrow?”</p><p class="p1">“Yeah… Father’s Day.”</p><p class="p1">“Oh.” Something shifts in her expression, and she leans back in the booth, folding her arms. “Well, that’s… fun, but I don’t know if I’m your girl.”</p><p class="p1">Sometimes he forgets that she hasn’t had great luck with her own dad. Maybe this was insensitive. People are so <em>hard </em>when you’re not trying to finesse them like a trick vending machine.</p><p class="p1">“It’s not about my dad,” he says quickly, holding out one hand. “Believe me, that’s <em>not</em> in the cards, and good riddance.”</p><p class="p1">For some reason, that perks her up a little more. Or at least the curiosity takes some wariness out of her posture. “Oh?”</p><p class="p1">“Yeah.” He gives an awkward grin. “<em>That</em> ship done sailed.”</p><p class="p1">“Then…?”</p><p class="p1">“It’s… it’s about… Whit.”</p><p class="p1">She claps both hands over her mouth and makes a high-pitched sound behind them.</p><p class="p1">“We’ve talked about this,” he says.</p><p class="p1">“I know. I know! I know.” Connie lowers her hands, fingers extended, and breathes out. Then the mantra: “You are not my own personal soap opera.”</p><p class="p1">“Thank you,” he says, then slumps forward on the table. “But I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s… weird. I want to do something. I want him to… to know. And it’s not about Jason, it’s not like a weird… you know… father-in-law thing.”</p><p class="p1">“Not <em>yet</em>,” Connie says.</p><p class="p1">He gives her a look, then continues. “It’s just… you know. Where would I be without him?” <em>Dead</em>, a voice reminds him, <em>really just super dead. Put that on a card.</em> “But what do I do? How much is too much and how much is not enough? It’s killing me.”</p><p class="p1">“Father’s Day’ll do that,” she muses. “Can’t you just go with your gut?”</p><p class="p1">“My gut,” he says, lifting a single index finger, “has never made a coherent, trustworthy decision regarding fathers or father figures since the day I was born, <em>thank</em> you very much. That’s why I asked you.”</p><p class="p1">“Well, <em>I</em> don’t know what smart decision re: fathers looks like, either!"</p><p class="p1">“You’ve never given Whit a Father’s Day card?”</p><p class="p1">She looks stricken. “Should I have?”</p><p class="p1">“I don’t know! See? It’s hard. It’s really fu—“ He catches himself, glances at the kids. “It’s really… freaking hard.”</p><p class="p1">“Yeah.” Connie slumps backward in the booth, drawing her finger in circles through a ring of condensation on the tabletop. “I don’t know. Maybe we could break into Whit’s house. See where he keeps his old Dad’s Day cards. Check out the competition”</p><p class="p1">“He recycles them,” Richard says, a little miserably. “I thought about it already. And it’s not a competition, <em>Connie</em>.”</p><p class="p1">“Uh huh,” she says, though it’s clear her thoughts are on their own trajectory by now. “Not a competition, Connie.”</p><p class="p1">After doing some more half-hearted brainstorming, they both go back to work. At least it’s something else to focus on, instead of the impending emotional failure that tomorrow is looking to turn into.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>1. I don't know if I write Connie accurately, but I do really enjoy channeling her energy! I like the idea of a Connie who feels a little more... scrappy and Millennial and real than she usually does on a kids' audio show. </p><p>2. I don't know what Connie's relationship with her dad is like besides some memes I've seen on tumblr. I just extrapolated. If I'm out and out wrong, this is just the slightly alternate universe where Richard and Jason met up earlier and collaborated more and everything's just a step to the left.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Some slight language in this one :| I try to keep my AiO fics G-rated but sometimes it's more dishonest not to swear.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It looks good. The ground was torn to hell and back, as befitting an explosion, but once Jack and Jason were done renovating it, the ruined earth made a decent garden. The gazebo’s a little twee, in Richard’s opinion, but he’s not really the target audience for a prayer garden. </p><p>They didn’t ask him before they started cleaning, planning, planting. Which makes sense. His opinion wasn’t necessary, because it’s not his land, not his garden, not his explosion, not his business. Sometimes, though, he wishes... </p><p><em>If wishes were horses</em>, he thinks, <em>you’d burn their barn down.</em></p><p>Jack isn’t there when Richard arrives before work, thank God. (Ha.) It still gives Richard a prickly feeling on the undersides of his feet when he walks into the garden, like he’s a demon walking on consecrated ground. It’s all in his head, he’s sure, but he’s a little afraid of what Jack would say if he saw Richard walking on the flowerbed divider stones instead of on the moss or the stepping stones, just to put three more inches between himself and the earth Regis Blackgaard salted.</p><p><em>You always make me more dramatic</em>, Richard thinks, stabbing at the ground with his cane. <em>Even just the thought of you does.</em></p><p>That makes him think of a sentimental old love song and that makes the nausea kick in, so he leans against the side of the gazebo, the side facing away from Whit’s End. How does he know that song? He hopes it wasn’t one of the ones Mickey played. It probably was. He liked oldies playing at an infuriatingly low volume while he coded. Ugh. Father’s Day. Memories. Ugh.</p><p>This is the second Father’s Day he’s spent in the prayer garden. The last one, Whit wasn’t here. He thought about trying to call, but the potential humiliation never outweighed the potential psychic relief of unburdening his soul. Especially with all the static involved. Hard enough to say Happy Father’s Day in person to someone who isn’t your dad. Worse to have to repeat yourself, probably yelling, multiple times, until the message gets through and you have to wait for the response, hear it crumbled into bits, ask again and again what he was trying to say, collecting shards of his words until it spelled out awkwardness or uncertainty or gentle rejection. (It would be the <em>gentle</em> part that did it.) And then you’d have to figure out how to hang up.</p><p>“Traditional fatherhood is better,” Richard tells the ground. “Just... a lot of physical and psychological trauma. Simple. Straightforward. Manly. Like us.”</p><p>The ground is silent. </p><p>Richard wonders if he could still dig up bits of bone or if the ground’s absorbed everything it held onto after the search. He pokes it with his cane again, more searchingly.</p><p>“Were you actually proud of me?” he asks. Might as well, if the ground isn’t talking anyway. “Ever? I know most of it was a show. You weren’t trying very hard, sometimes.” </p><p>
  <em>You never did much to disabuse yourself of the notion.</em>
</p><p>“But sometimes,” Richard persists, “it felt like you meant it. Sometimes. When I tried my hardest, and didn’t complain, and made it all feel like... like it was just a game and you were winning.”<br/> <br/><em>As if I ever needed you to win.</em><br/><br/>“It was <em>fun</em>,” Richard says, amazed at himself. “Sometimes. You made it fun. Feeling like we were in a super special secret club, just us, and we’d be rich and brilliant and safe. Forever.”<br/> <br/><em>Yes, forever. I’m sure it would have been... fun... to keep you around forever.</em><br/><br/>“Just once in a while,” Richard insisted. “Mostly you were a dick. I mean, worse, but... how was I supposed to know? I was a kid. I mean, a real bad kid, an awful kid, I try not to think about it, but you <em>used</em> me. And sometimes I did it because I was scared, but you just...” <br/> <br/>He wants to hit the ground again, but it’s silent now, and he feels bad about pummeling grass for no reason.<br/> <br/>“Once in a while, I thought you were proud of me.”<br/> <br/>There’s still silence, even from the Regis-voice in his head. Probably because the Regis-voice in his head is laughing.<br/> <br/>“Anyway,” Richard mutters, looking up into the morning sky. It’s probably about time for his shift to start. He should go in. He doesn’t. “Hope you’re having a shitty Father’s Day on the other side, Regis.”<br/> <br/>He still doesn’t go in. Doesn’t move. There are aches on the insides of his fingers where they grip the cane. <br/> <br/>Behind him, someone gently clears their throat. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>every Richard-centric fic I write is just an excuse to get people to acknowledge how Good and Heroic and Worthy he truly is, and I won't apologize for it.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Mind if I butt in?” Whit asks.</p><p>Richard’s brain clangs with inappropriate words and turns of phrase - how long has Whit been here? has he been <em>listening</em>? - but he just wiggles the cane vaguely at the ground nearby. “It’s your garden.”<br/> <br/>“Not any more than it’s yours. They didn’t ask me.” Whit leans against the gazebo at Richard’s side. Not too close, the way Richard appreciates. He has a sensitive personal space bubble and he’s always been grateful that Whit Gets It without having to be explicitly told. “Which sums up Jack and Jason pretty neatly, when you think about it. Planting gardens without waiting for permission.”</p><p>Richard can’t help a little smile. “Wonder where they get it.”</p><p>“You can’t blame Jack on me, at least.”</p><p>“I bet I could figure out a way.”</p><p>Their muted, comfortably awkward amusement hangs in the air. The sky is losing its pink morning edge. Richard’s definitely late for work. But he knows Whit doesn’t mind. And he knows Whit heard him talking to the ground like a lunatic boy, too.</p><p><em>Happy Father’s Day! </em>It sounds so easy. Nothing to it but to do it, Brownlow always said, like you could make a thing easy by saying it was. Richard used to be good at talking. If he wanted to say something, he just... said it. Words were easy. He just hadn’t bothered meaning them. That was the trick. That was the prestige. That--</p><p>“Connie gave me this,” Whit says, derailing Richard’s runaway hamster-wheel of a brain. He waves a card between two fingers. It has a watercolor painting of ducks on it, caught somewhere between ‘illustration in a children’s book’ and ‘saccharine Thomas Kincade knockoff.’ Bizarrely, it kind of works. One of the ducks has a rain hat on, for reasons Richard can never hope to divine. “Thank you.”</p><p>Thank you? “You’re welcome,” he says, trying not to sound cautious, and then he realizes that Connie must have covered for him. Forged his signature. He loves it when she’s benevolently devious. Wait. Whit knows? About how both of them--</p><p>“She’s never given me one before,” Whit continues, chuckling at the ducks on the card. He sounds enormously fond. “Said it was your idea.” </p><p>“...A little.” Richard thunks his head backward against the gazebo rail. “It was mostly a group effort, though.”</p><p>Which is, technically, true. </p><p><em>Is it weird?</em> he wants to ask. <em>Is it too weird? Do you want me to... not? Is it uncomfortable? Is it not like that? It’s not you, it’s me?</em></p><p>He glances sideways at Whit, who is still smiling at the card.</p><p>“I haven’t gotten a Father’s Day card in a while,” Whit says, waving the card once more. “It was a... a very nice surprise.”</p><p>Richard stares at him. “You’re... you're not drowning in them?”</p><p>“Why would I be?”</p><p>Richard keeps staring. “Not even from Jason?” That makes Whit laugh again, and Richard sighs. “Okay, maybe that was... an ambitious assumption.”</p><p>“I’m not convinced Jason knows what greeting cards look like.”</p><p>“Whose fault is that?”<br/> <br/>“His mother’s.”</p><p>Richard grins. </p><p>The silence swells again. Birds sing. The trees beyond the garden riffle in a little breeze. It would all be great if Whit wasn’t right there, and Blackgaard wasn’t...</p><p>“Richard,” Whit says at last, his amusement fading, “I wasn’t here when... this happened.” He gestures to the garden which used to be the site of a terrible explosion. “I wish I could have been. And I tried not to... pressure you to talk about what happened. So I don’t know much about what you went through.”</p><p>Richard stares at the grass under his cane.</p><p>“But I heard about it from a lot of people. And what they told me, about what you did...” Whit trails off, shaking his head. “I couldn’t believe it. Until I thought about it, that is. About... not about how you were, but how you <em>wanted</em> to be, even back then with Blackgaard’s Castle. No more secret agenda, no more lies. Just you trying to help.”</p><p>“It’s not noble or anything if I’m just cleaning up a mess I helped make.”<br/> <br/>“You didn’t make Blackgaard,” Whit says. “And, believe it or not, he didn’t make you. You proved that. And... I’m so proud of you for that.”</p><p>Richard laughs wetly, thinking a word that rhymes with ‘duck.’ “So you did hear me.”</p><p>“Sorry. But it’s true. I am proud of you. You deserve to know.”</p><p>“This is your day, Whit.”</p><p>“Then indulge me and let me sound like a father.”</p><p>“I have no idea what that’s supposed to sound like,” Richard says, falling back on an old impulse joke. Then he waves a hand, rewinding himself. “No, scratch that. I do now.”</p><p>Whit smiles again and looks down at the card.</p><p>Richard hesitates, but he’s gotten this far. Might as well sprint the last few feet. “So... it’s not to weird if I say it?”</p><p>“I’d be honored.”</p><p>“Okay.” He takes a deep breath. “Happy Father’s Day, Whit.”</p><p>There. That wasn’t so hard, in the end. And the look on Whit’s face makes it worth all the trouble.</p><p>He’ll have to let Connie know.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>